“I mean this from the bottom of my heart when I say this, angel… Fuck you.”

  They say that during the first 20 seconds that a human being experiences fight or flight, they enter a state where they can only act on instinct. Judging from how calmly he could lament on his shitty life, it must’ve been 20 seconds now since the tip of a gun was first pointed at his forehead.

  Its sleek, polished metal surface glinted ominously beneath what little light could reach the back of the alley.

  Akuma Tiryns took a cautious step back, immediately understanding the futility after doing so. The barrel loomed from a mere 6 feet away. To make matters worse, the safety had already been disabled and it was locked and in position.

  “So, demon… What now? What's your move?”

  The delinquent holding the gun raised the question for Akuma. His cheap cigarette danced across his lips with each word, the brand so off brand that it had earned him his nickname—Bomi.

  It was supposed to be an average Thursday. Akuma Tiryns would wake up inside his lonely apartment, go to school like every other teenager, diligently do all his work, and head back home first thing after dismissal to watch some anime. Or better yet, catch up on that collection of manga that had been collecting dust on his shelf for weeks now. That was the plan. That was always the plan.

  But like always, a certain someone couldn’t go a day without meddling in his life.

  30 seconds.

  That’s about as much time that had transpired since the tip of a gun first pointed at Akuma. Using that as a baseline, then it must've been a little under 2 minutes since his initial encounter with Bomi.

  Bomi—a grown man and likely in his late 20s to early 30s—and four other delinquents of similar ages had cornered a pair of middle school girls for who knows what reasons. That’s when he made his unfortunate entrance, and a barrel was shoved in his face.

  “You’ve come all the way here to the Ghost District to play hero, but look where that got you. A shame really. I had heard so much of the supposed ‘demon in human skin’. My guys wouldn’t stop going on about ya… You know what? I think if things had turned out differently, who knows, I might’ve asked ya to join my gang.”

  “And how do you think that would work out for you?” Akuma said with a confident smirk. “I haven’t even joined the clubs at my school, much less a gang. Sorry, but not everyone is a failure in society who’s desperate for somewhere to fit in. I’ve still got a whole life ahead of me.”

  Bomi’s shoulders shook with a gradual raise in laughter. His group of delinquents laughed with him.

  “I take it those are your last words, demon?”

  “Hell no. But I’ll take it, those are yours?”

  The laughter rippling between the gang of delinquents multiplied into a burst of mocking cackling. To them, Akuma Tiryns was spewing a desperate bluff and nothing else.

  After all, even excluding Bomi—who was the only one with a projectile based weapon, and possibly the most lethal handheld weapon in the modern age—each of them had a unique weapon that could be considered lethal.

  Nonetheless, Akuma kept a straight head, carefully piecing his plan together.

  Slowly, so that none of them would notice, Akuma dropped his hand and inched his way over so that he covered the middle school girls behind him.

  “W–What do you think you're doing?! Are you insane?!” asked one of the girls with a frantic tone after noticing what Akuma was doing.

  The other, while silent, had the same look in her eye that questioned Akuma’s sanity.

  “Just shut up and butt out,” Akuma instructed the two without any remorse. “It’s already enough trouble that I have to spend my free time doing another pointless mission. I don’t need you two buzzing in my ears too. Why don’t you do me a favor and get behind each other.”

  “Guh–!”

  With every fiber in her being, she wanted to shout the word “rude” at the top of her lungs, but she knew that doing so would only jeopardise Akuma’s plan.

  The quieter girl beside her put a hand on her shoulder while nodding, insinuating that they should go along with Akuma’s plan. The girl who initially questioned Akuma had her share of doubts, but it was also true that they didn’t have much choice in the matter.

  Putting their faith in the demon had become their only way out of this mess.

  “...”

  After adjusting himself so that his body was perfectly shielding the girls, Akuma clapped—his palms connecting so perfectly that the sound vibrated throughout the entire alleyway.

  Bomi and his group ceased their laughter immediately, their focus homing back in the teenage boy grinning from cheek to cheek.

  “That was strike 1,” said Akuma, his hands still held together as if he were praying. “Basically, that means that I could’ve easily ended this whole thing while you guys were busy laughing.”

  “Is this guy for real?!” A delinquent holding a metal bat was barely able to keep down a laugh.

  “Aw shit, we got ourselves a real clown here, boys!”

  “Man, and here I thought the ‘demon’ would be way more serious than this! What a let down!”

  “Alright, demon, I’ve gotta admit, you’re fucking hilarious!” chimed in Bomi. “Hey, why don’t you say we just forget all this happened and you just join my gang, eh? I’m in a damn good mood after that one.”

  Akuma had intended to end all this with his intimidation tactic alone. Clearly, he overestimated their intelligence.

  “You’re doing it again…”

  His voice rumbled like a brewing storm. Everyone inside the alley, including the girls behind him, felt the change in tension instantly.

  Thud!

  Bomi readied his pistol but by then the sound of a heavy object hitting the ground next to him had echoed forebodingly in his ears. The group of thugs looked over and saw one of their guys collapsed on the ground. No warning. No movements. Just the sound of his body as it impacted the concrete. It was the same one carrying the metal bat.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  “This one makes strike 2. I hope that’s enough to show how serious I am.”

  Akuma’s voice had a certain calmness that wasn’t there before. Bomi might’ve been the only one who noticed. Somewhere along the way, the scales of the situation had flipped. But when? In the first place, how did Akuma even manage to knock out one of his guys in that brief moment they let down their guards?

  Bomi scrambled for an answer.

  When he realized he couldn’t find one, he fell back to the only thing he knew. Bomi’s finger squeezed down on the trigger of his pistol with the force of a guillotine. First came the bright flash that temporarily dazed everyone in proximity. Then, the deafening sound of thunder echoing across the alleyway. Their minds weren’t able to perceive the bullet, but there wasn’t any question about its path.

  Akuma’s head flew back, the rest of his body following its trajectory in a delayed manner. The onlookers gasped as seconds became minutes, and minutes became hours.

  Gradually, Bomi’s lips curled up the edges of his face. He had won.

  “!?”

  Or so he had thought…

  Thudd!!!

  The same foreboding sound from before rang inside Bomi’s eardrums once again. This time louder. 3x louder. Bomi’s eyes widened, the revelation hitting him with the force of a train. Out of the five of them, he was the only one still standing.

  “And that’s strike 3.”

  Akuma caught himself from a seemingly impossible position. When he pulled his head up, the bullet Bomi had shot at him could be seen between the rows of his teeth. Its surface flashed eerily.

  “GRAHH!! YOU LITTLE SHIT, I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!!!” Rather than declaring such a threat at the boy, it’d be more accurate to say Bomi had spit them at him.

  In a similar fashion, Akuma spat the bullet out like a used-up piece of gum before calmly replying to Bomi’s threat.

  “I’d like to see you try.”

  Bomi attempted to speak, but the strength to do so took a while to reach his bloody lips.

  Blood poured out of the flesh wound above his brow at an alarming rate, dying his face in its crimson color. It had been caused by a blunt object—a fist to be specific, but by how severe it looked, you’d think the delinquent had been assaulted by the claws and talons of a monster.

  “Ne…xt… t…Nex…ti…I’ll…ick y...ss…”

  Although his words were chopped apart, Akuma could surmise the general message.

  He was experiencing one of those cliche moments where the bad guy, boiling with rage and frustration, would declare how he’d one day get his revenge. How he planned on rounding up his entire team or gang to come back and teach Akuma a lesson.

  “Is that how it is… Then I guess my only option here is to take your ability to get that revenge you want so badly, huh?”

  “–!”

  The boy’s grip was like iron, and his strength was that of an ox. Despite his slight stature, Akuma Tiryns, a mere 17-year-old boy, was able to lift Bomi by the neck and pin him to the alley wall.

  “…d…on…”

  “Oh, I’m the demon here…” said Akuma in a melodramatic tone, unable to believe the words Bomi was trying to say. “Y’know, if I’m a demon then what exactly does that make you? I mean you’re the one who was pressuring some middle school girls in the back of an alley for… what was it again…? ‘Protection money’? The hell does that even mean?!”

  “...d…mon….”

  “Tch. You’re like a broken record.”

  Akuma glanced over at the pair of middle school girls.

  He noticed that they were still trembling, even after Akuma knocked out four out of the five delinquents. While he had managed to make it in the nick of time, the situation had clearly taken its toll on them.

  Akuma’s gaze snapped back at Bomi, cold and disgusted.

  “People like you make me sick to my stomach.”

  “...If… you wanna… blame someone… Blame them… for stepping in the Ghost District…”

  Bomi gathered what little reserves of energy he could to retort. He flashed a wide smile that—cloaked with the blood on his face—looked so creepy and disgusting that it caused the girls beside them to recoil visibly.

  Just as he always thought. Reasoning guys like him was impossible.

  A sound reminiscent of a deflating balloon could be heard leaving Bomi’s mouth.

  “The hell’s so funny?!” Akuma asked after Bomi managed to squeeze out a dry laugh.

  A victorious gleam appeared in Bomi’s eyes.

  “...Nothing much... It’s just, you keep acting like I’m some kind of monster who needs to be taken care of… You’re looking at me with the same eyes as someone looking at a heaping pile of shit and piss… But from the way I’m standing, you’re way worse than a pile of shit like me… You can try to play the hero act all you want but I see through you! We all do! You goddamn murderer!”

  He’d used up all his physical strength. Despite that, his voice was able to ring out so loudly that it was as if a carillon had been struck. With it, a nightmarish memory returned to Akuma’s retinas, looping like an old film.

  The accident.

  A chapter in his life that was better left untold.

  “Ho, ho. What’s this? Are you feeling… guilt? You?! Don’t tell me ya going soft, demon. People like you and me don’t need that kind of sentimental emotional–”

  Out of a mix of reflex and the instinct to survive, Bomi’s own hands fastened around Akuma’s forearms and desperately pushed away. Akuma’s grip tightened around Bomi’s neck like a vengeful noose.

  From an outsider’s perspective Bomi should’ve had the advantage in physical strength—considering the sheer difference in size. But his efforts were futile. He was like a fly trying to pry out of a spider’s web.

  “I’m sick and tired of you people buzzing in my ear. I just want some peace and quiet for a change. Is that too much to ask for?”

  Bomi’s eyes expanded and contracted with what could only be called absolute fear. A primal and instinctual fear where every cell in his body was screaming to run away.

  Except he couldn’t.

  Not just because Akuma was a monster beyond human strength—able to single handedly pummel five grown men in an enclosed area. It was the malice and sheer bottomless hatred that radiated from Akuma’s crimson eyes.

  They were dark, bottomless and seemingly alive.

  Bomi felt as if those eyes were defiling him, as if they could see anything and everything about him. He felt that if he stared directly at them for too long, then he’d be left bare.

  Under the weight of that gaze, Bomi finally reached his limit.

  His eyes slowly rolled to the back of his head, saliva foaming at his lips. Then, his arms surrendered to gravity like support ropes that had been cut down.

  With a click of his tongue, Akuma released his hold on the delinquent’s collar. His body sank to the ground like a heavy ball, bouncing a bit on impact.

  Akuma then turned his attention back to the two middle school girls who, until now, were shaking in the corner of the alley, unable to say anything as Akuma mercilessly choked the life out of Bomi.

  “You guys alright?” Akuma asked, faking a bright and welcoming smile as best as he could.

  Except, when he turned his gaze, he didn’t see them. Only the usual garbage and piles of trash and shit in the corners that had been scattered by wild animals.

  No surprise there. He was well aware of them leaving. He had sensed it. As soon as Bomi’s body had hit the ground, the two wasted no time in darting out of the alley without so much as a word of gratitude to Akuma.

  It was a good thing.

  It simply meant that the girls hadn’t been traumatised by what happened. At least, not enough to impair their ability to think and act logically.

  So, it was alright.

  It was alright.

  It was… alright…

  Akuma’s sharp crimson eyes swept over the unconscious bodies of the five delinquents one last time. It was over. That much was clear. But the question was, what came next?

  Calling the cops was completely out of the question. If anything, the cops would probably just arrest Akuma for “illegal visitation to the Ghost District” and whatever other nonsensical charges they wanted to slap on.

  Akuma looked down at his palm and clenched his fist tightly.

  With that hand, he could cast a certain power that defied common sense. It was completely and totally illogical power that, by all standards, shouldn’t have existed in this ordinary and mundane world. Yet, that power was utterly useless in this situation.

  In other words, Akuma was powerless.

  Limitations of a common man, plain and simple.

  …Well, actually. There was one other option he had available.

  He could just kill them.